Late last year, we took an early look at a then-rumored feature that we expected to see in an upcoming build of Android: Multi-window. We've heard rumors and whatnot since then, but no physical implementation had been spotted. Now, Multi-window is a real thing, it's part of M, and you can try it today (if you're willing to mod your device a little bit).

It's worth mentioning that this is still very early in its development and is quite buggy. But the idea is there - you can run two things on the screen at one time. To check it out, you basically need to install a custom recovery and do a quick edit in the build.prop file. If you're comfortable with that, then it's easy-peasy—full instructions can be found here.

Once the build.prop modification has been done, you can simply head into Developer Options and toggle Multi-window. A new icon will then show up in the recents menu, allowing you to simultaneously run two apps at once.

Here's to hoping that this is finished and ready to go by the time M is officially released.

Comments

We still have 4(?) more months of dev preview updates to have this functionality refined. Let's not give them a reason to delay until 'O'!

Phil Oakley

O's the 2017 release. Did you mean N? It might even be ready for M.

Droidweb

Can't wait to get my Android 'O' face ready

navjot

Not sure if we're actually gonna end up seeing this in M. If that was the case they would have probably talked about it at I/O. Just like App Ops, which first appeared in KitKat or Jellybean, but isn't gonna be released officially until M later this year.

TigerMike901

t's about time the ball is rolling, sort of, on multi-window! if they are going to keep making phablet Nexus devices, they need phablet features, and this is a step in the right direction!

humulos

Tried unsuccessfully to get this working on my Nexus 9 last night and this morning. It seems that TWRP can't decrypt the tablet to mount anything on M, making the recovery useless for now, which means there's no way to edit the build prop (adb root doesn't work either).

Hopefully someone figures out a way to make it work because I really want to try it out!

Luxferro

you don't need to access the encrypted data partition, just /system. according to the reddit post.

so just fastboot boot twrp.img, and cancel the pin for encryption, make your build prop change, and reboot.

Corey Watford

Just use ES File Manager

humulos

Tried, but without root the build.prop file can't be saved

humulos

That's the strange part, is TWRP is acting like I need to decrypt when I go to mount /system. It's asking for a password, which I have never seen before, and nothing I've entered (default_password, screen unlock pin) worked to allow me to successfully mount, which without that mount, I can't push or pull with adb.

Christopher Bement

Do you have a pin lock set? TWRP was asking me for a decrypt password for wiping when on 5.1. Didn't really decrypt anything, just needed my pin to move forward.

humulos

Yeah, I was thinking that may be the issue, so I entered my converted pattern number, that didn't work. Rebooted and removed lockscreen security, but that didn't change anything.

TJKV

When it asks for pin, your only option isn't to enter it ;)

Press cancel and it will mount just /system. That's all you need to get at that build.prop :D

humulos

Imma try more at this tonight to see if I can get it to go, thinking now maybe it was driver issues. Thanks for the tip!

humulos

Ugh, so I did hit cancel before and just assumed that it wasn't working because I couldn't enter the password, but it was just a lousy driver issue! I feel so dumb, manually updated the driver and it worked great! EEEEE!

TJKV

:D

humulos

Just read the post and saw your edit, and I see there is a way to change it that I didn't try, so I am trying that as soon as I get home!

I'm pretty sure it didn't. The future debuted on the Note II which is a while back.

MindFever

Galaxy S3 had this as well but I think you are right, Note 2 got it first and after sgs3 got the update, it got that too

El Servas

Maybe, but Samsung shipped it on a mass-distributed stock product.

TheDorkKnightRises

Paranoid's wasn't Multiwindow...it was Floating window...non-movable and you couldn't add a second (or 3rd or 4th for that matter) app.

MindFever

Hm,I don't remember the timeline the same way...I think the Note 2 got it first and soon after P.A. enabled this, to placate some Note users who wanted to flash PA and have a similar experience to the multi window...also because it is a clever feature.
I cannot say for sure ,it was long ago and I was still using my SGS1 at that time

Justin Swanson

You're thinking of omni. Pa had halo and hover

MindFever

That must be it then. Tnx for the correction

Oliver Cervera ✔ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ

me too with the SGS1 at the time :D

MindFever

Hell yeah! :)

Defenestratus

I wouldn't put your hopes into this being available with M when it releases. Software in this state is nowhere near ready for primetime, plus they would have made it more available in the dev preview so that developers could plan around this functionality.

mattcoz

There will be multiple updates to the preview, so it may be enabled in the future for developers to test.

somedude

It IS available if you run Android M in Android SDK's built in emulator. So here's hoping it does end up being a part of M.

Okay, but seriously... they can't launch it if they haven't been able to fully test it with the developers developing for it. Developers will be a lot ANGRIER if it launches before they've even been able to test it, and users will be angry because it won't work.

My initial point was that even if it's not ready for THIS build, they would have listed it as an upcoming feature of M if they planned to release it soon, and have developers ready for it.

Maxr1998

Hmm. I still think it might come in the next ota. They didn't want to decide right now. Developers will get to know soon enough.

On user devices you won't be able to see the option, no matter which device you are on. Your build.prop has to say userdebug instead of user for the ro.build.type, which the article has a link to a nice write up of how to do this.

I've heard it working on the 5 and 6, but so far I haven't found anyone to get it to work on the 9, thanks to trouble with actually editing the build.prop.

Dennis Ulijn

Ah, didn't follow the link :) thanks for the explanation.

humulos

np, but I didn't follow the link either until just now and it seems that they got it working on the 9. Can't wait to try that tonight!

h4rr4r

And the wheel of computing turns once more.

Tile based window managers are so 1989.

ReSiS

If Apple get their multi-window iOS ready this year, I'm sure Android won't be far behind and have this ready for M. If not, then probably Android N.

Roberto

Does it work with every app? For example, on the LG G3 implementation I cant split screen candy crush and whatsapp. Can this implementation do it?

Josh Crumley

I disabled it shortly after that screenshot. Once you set a window into half-screen mode its almost impossible to make it full screen again. Too broken to use at the moment but still neat to fool around with.

Fatal1ty_93_RUS

Probably one of the biggest changes in M, but it is understandable why Google didn't cover it in I/O

This might finally persuade me to get a Tablet. I never needed more screen real estate if I was switching between apps all the time, but this...this is something! :D

whispy_snippet

This is very, very exciting. Definitely one of the features I've most wanted to see come to stock Android.

Semianonymous

If its in the SDK but it wasn't announced and its buggy as hell, I bet we wont see it in the first M release, but we will be seeing it in a .1 update as a headlining feature.

Jimmy Rocket

Samsung has had this for while but keep in mind that if Google bakes this into Android it must work with all app and provide APIs for developers.

Assembly Language

I'll stick with my Samsung Galaxy with REAL multi-app support

David Onter

?

.

Assembly Language

Galaxy phones have been had dual app functionality, meaning that I can open two different apps at the same time via split screen i.e., youtube on the bottom half of the screen and a web browser opened at the top of the screen. It's a beautiful thing on my Note 4